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Thursday, 6 November 2014

Had a very nice moment recently that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. No Island got fan mail from a couple of young musicians who told us how much they like our songs and asked if we could send them some charts so that they could play them for themselves. We almost never use charts of any sort, but I was able to find something to send them. I heard back saying how excited they were and that they were going to get together with some friends to play through the songs. I hope they keep on going after that song.

To cover my recent hiatus from posting:

No Island did a small summer tour, best summed up in the video playlist below.

Los Furios opened for The Slackers at The Imperial, and then played a super fun Halloween show at the Howe Sound Brewing Co.

Lightbulb Vaporizer has had me on board for some more of their shows, including a CD release show later this month at the good ol' Railway Club.

This fall has seen many late nights at Habitat Studios overseeing the final stages of No Island's Better Days coming together, as well as continuing work on Los Furios' as-yet-untitled EP that was started earlier this year. Most of my focus will be on the No Island album leading up to its release in early 2015.

Sunday, 15 June 2014

I've been pretty negligent about updating lately, which is a shame because so much has been happening.

The biggest news is the success of No Island's crowdfunding campaign that will be concluding about 4 hours after this is posted. Thanks to all our incredible fans, friends, and family, we are able to move ahead with the production of our new album Better Days that we spent the month of May recording. Even unmixed, the songs are already sounding amazing. I'm so proud and excited to share this music with the world, hopefully sometime this fall if things go according to plan.

Behind the scenes, Los Furios also has a new release brewing (although the target release date is still unknown to me). We also have a free show coming up this Saturday at the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival at the Olympic Village around 3:30.

Wednesday, 16 April 2014

No Island finally has another big Vancouver show coming up. Joining us on the bill will be my friends in missingNo, whom I assisted in recording their original demos. We'll be stealing their horn section for a few No Island songs. It feels like it's been a while since I last sat down to arrange horn parts rather than doing it on-the-fly. I also had the pleasure of designing the poster. Quite excited for this one! Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1454741188095830/

Thursday, 3 April 2014

I've been called up to provide some saxophone next week for a band I'd never met before: Lightbulb Vaporizer. I jammed with them earlier this week, and it was quite different from any other projects I'm currently involved with. Simply put, they are an instrumental jam band. So if you want to hear me doing some uninhibited musical wanking, come on down to Pat's Pub Friday April 11. Also playing are The Jen Huangs for their last show ever.

In April, No Island recorded, filmed, and released a snazzy little two-song mini-EP featuring our new sound.

I found the perfect alto sax for me, a Yamaha Custon-Z in silver. Such a joy to play.

In May, I traveled to Mexico for the first time in my life to play a tour with Los Furios. I was immediately enamored by the experience, especially the culture and the people I encountered there.

After recording (but not yet releasing) their swan song EP, The Ivy League Brawlers played their final show ever in June before amicably disbanding. I learned a lot from playing with that band, and I'm glad we got to go out with a band.

July and August featured what is without a doubt my most ambitious undertaking to date: a 40-date (38 after cancellations), 7-week tour across Canada, all the way to Halifax and back again. Entirely booked by myself and band mate Andy Rice, the tour tested all five members in many ways. The endeavour was unarguably a success and a transformative process for the band.

I finally acquired a bass clarinet. With any luck, it will start finding its way into more of my work soon.

And last but very far from least, something of an entirely personal nature: 2013 is the year I met Maureen, the amazing lady in my life. I couldn't be happier.

So far, 2014 has been very good. Can't wait to see what the rest of it brings!

No Island is competing in an acoustic battle-of-the-bands. It's a fun opportunity for us to re-imagine our songs in a new context, and it's also a chance for us to potentially win one of two prizes that would make our next album possible. If you want to hear a different side of No Island and support us in the competition (audience voting is factored into the decision), the semi-final round will be taking place sometime in the first or second week of February (date TBA soon) at The Sin Bin in Vancouver (two blocks east of the Olympic Village Skytrain station).

Also in No Island news, the band will be doing a winter mini-tour in February. We'll be hitting Kelowna, Banff, Stavely, and Golden. I took another crack at poster design for this one, with fellow band mate Andy Rice taking care of the text and logos for this one.

*UPDATE Jan 23* : Revelstoke show cancelled, replaced with new show in Banff.